In a past blog, I talked about how dealers can capitalize upon customer moments in their video marketing strategies. This is an excellent tool for utilizing sales and service customers to acquire new ones without spending hundreds of dollars. A recent article I read by MarTech suggests taking this “Moment Marketing” strategy to the next level. Mainly, utilizing current topics and trends to create marketing that consumers care about on a larger scale, going beyond just the dealership’s internal assets.

I am sure you have seen some examples. Do you remember when the power went out during the 2013 Super Bowl? All sorts of companies capitalized on that including Walgreens, Oreo, Tide, and even Audi taking a shot at Mercedes… and they all went viral.

I realize that your dealership probably does not have the resources to accomplish that level of marketing. However, you may be surprised to learn that many of you are probably already doing it on some level. Think about how most dealerships’ marketing changed during the pandemic to showing how hygienic, clean, and safe their dealerships (that could be open) were. Or how they instituted pickup and delivery services for both service and sales during the pandemic.

Currently, the auto industry is experiencing turmoil in vehicle acquisition and pricing, with some consumers paying MSRP for used vehicles. These acquisition pricing challenges at auction have shifted the marketing focus towards enticing consumers to trade in or sell their cars to the dealer. In addition, dealers are aggressively targeting the end of lease customer 12-18 months before their lease end date rather than the 3-month norm. There are also many consumer-oriented sites advising customers that now is the time to get rid of that vehicle because they can get an extremely attractive trade-in value.

To take a larger view of Moment Marketing, and to produce the most ROI from this marketing, it helps to additionally be aware of what’s going on in your communities, PMA, and the world. Besides using video to focus on how great your dealership is through customer testimonials; consider utilizing video to show how your dealership understands and cares about the exact things your customers do. It's not a hard concept because every dealer, dealership employee, or even your vendor partners care about a lot of the same things that are going on. Whether that’s unusual or funny things that happened (like the lights going out at the Super Bowl through social media posts); or more emotional things such as the Budweiser Clydesdales kneeling to remember September 11 ten years after the fact, these are things that endear people to your brand by touching their hearts and creating an emotional connection.

There is no way for me to know what's going on that is important to your local community. Every dealership is going to have its own "moments." I can tell you, however, that the majority of us know what’s going on in the United States. By being sensitive, identifying what matters to YOU and your customers, and using that information to create sensitive, emotional, funny creative video (depending on the situation, of course,) your videos can transcend the normal “buy a car” type videos.

Create videos that connect your dealership with consumers, build brand awareness and advocate and increase engagement with your content. This will endear your customers and potential customers to you and, when they’re ready, they will choose you over your competition.